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POEMS 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



POEMS 



BY 

GLADYS CROMWELL 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

PADRAIC COLUM 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1919 

All rights reserved 



y^S 






Copyright, 1919 
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and electrotyped. Published December, 1919. 



DEC 10 1919 



©CI.A536908 






Thanks are due to the Editor of Poetry for 
courteous permission to reprint " The Fugi- 
tive," " The Crowning Gift," " Folded Power," 
"The Mould," "Autumn Communion" and 
" Star Song " ; also to the Editor of The New 
Republic for " Winter Landscape " and 
" Words," and to the Sunwise Turn for " The 
Scientist. 59 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/poemsOOcrom 



INTRODUCTION TO GLADYS 
CROMWELL'S POEMS 

The poetry of Gladys Cromwell was that of 
an out-dweller on modern life. In it there are 
no mannerisms, no novelties. Personality is 
expressed, but it is not exhibited. It is a 
poetry that has the accent of actuality, but of 
an actuality known to a noble heart and a dis- 
tinguished spirit. 

There is nothing facile in these poems. In- 
deed in certain of them the workmanship is halt- 
ing and unachieved. But in the poems that 
are the least fluent there are moments of mas- 
tery — moments when the words become alive 
with spirit. Such a poem as " Conflict " seems 
to come out of the silence and the dark like a 
living thing. And there is exquisite achieve- 
ment in "The Mould," "Folded Power," 
" Autumn Communion," " Star Song," " Def- 
inition," "Dominion," "The Crowning Gift." 
These are fine lyrics indeed — indubitably 
amongst the best that has been written in our 
day. 

Amongst many other distinctions this poetry 
has the distinction of being a woman's poetry. 
[vii] 



INTRODUCTION 

I do not mean that it has an obviously feminine 
interest. Again, one can say that personality 
is not exhibited. But the perceptions are -a 
woman's perceptions. The eagerness is a wom- 
an's eagerness. The renunciations are a wom- 
an's renunciations. The wit is a woman's wit. 
And yet, although it is assuredly a woman's 
poetry, its balance dips towards thought rather 
than to emotion. It is a poetry that comes 
out of impassioned thought. Indeed I think 
" thought " is the word most often used by 
Gladys Cromwell. She felt herself bound and 
laden, but like certain philosophical determin- 
ists she knew herself free in meditation and in- 
trospection. Out of this free and dearly ap- 
preciated thought she made her poems. 

In all she wrote there is an attempt to do a 
difficult thing — to say. What she writes is 
not a phrase, but a statement. Stripped of 
rime and rhythm these poems would have the 
interest of something written in a diary by a 
clear and a sincere soul. The world was dif- 
ficult for her, but it was intelligible, as she 
averred in her poem " The Audience " ; and this 
sense of intelligibility brought her to a deliber- 
ate and often to a finely achieved form. 

Most of her poems are touched by a tragic 
vision of life — 

[viii] 



INTRODUCTION 

" Trust not your hopes for all are vain, 
Trust not your happiness and pain, 
Trust not your storehouses of grain, 
Trust not your strength on land or sea, 
Trust not your loves that come and go, 
Trust only the hate of the common foe, 
War is the one reality." 

Her songs are to enfold her sorrow " like por- 
tions of a mellow sheath." The " age-bent " 
woman that she once saw lead the herd to pas- 
ture is made to typify a resignation that the 
young poet herself has striven for. She can 
never be off guard. She is proud that she has 
had the courage to oppose, and she knows that 
she has won illumination from conflict. 

There was one gay tune, however, that she 
wrote to triumphantly — the Elizabethan tune. 
When she struck it she became fluent with beau- 
tiful words and imagery. — 

As clouds lie in the west, 
My fairest pleasures rest 
In you, their element 
Of being. Loath to die 
They ornament your sky, 
Amassed, magnificent. 

The poems she has written to this measure 
have a smiling detachment. 

All that Gladys Cromwell had to say came 
out of a spiritual experience brooded over and 
made her own, and elevated hy an heroic quality 
[ix] 



INTRODUCTION 

of mind. She was steadily moving towards a 
more perfect achievement and the poems that 
she wrote in the last years and before the 
world's trouble drew her away were finer and 
more assured than those she had previously 
written. Behind the lines of battle her spirit 
showed as clearly and as beautifully as it does 
in her poetry. A year ago the soldiers in the 
Chalons section were speaking of herself and 
her sister (two beings indeed with a single soul) 
as " the Saints." The Government of France 
recognized their devotion and the worth of their 
service by the decoration it gave. These sis- 
ters were like twin spirits caught into an alien 
sphere, strangely beautiful and strangely apart, 
and the heavy and unimaginable weight of the 
world's agony became too great for them to 
bear. The one who was the articulate poet has 
left a triumphant stanza for our thought of 
them — 

I know that we exist, 
Two entities in Time. 
Our vital wills resist 
Enclosing night; our thoughts 
Command a Truth above 
All fear, in knowing Love. 

So an Iphigenia might speak in a play by an 
Euripides of our day. 

Padraic Colum. 

M 



LATER POEMS 



THE ACTOR-SOLDIER 

On the grass I'm lying, 
My blanket is the sky ; 
This feeling is called dying. 

No one will testify 

They saw me suffer this ; — 

There's no one passing by. 

The wonder of it is, 
I'm by myself at last 
With plain realities. 

No one is here to cast 
A part for me to play ; 
My term of life is past. 

No one is here to see 
How I can meet and take 
This end ; — how gallantly — 

Though the ice that binds a lake 
Must weigh less heavily 
Than Death to my soul awake. 
[3] 



LATER POEMS 

I must have thirsted, indeed, 
For pity, then love, then praise ; 
For to win them, in every deed, 
I endeavoured all my days. 

The Soldier and the Son 
Were my seductive parts ; 
But I could act the clown, — 
Draw laughter from dumb hearts. 

The Soldier part was my best, — 
'Twas my last and my favourite. 
Every gift that I possessed 
I displayed for their benefit. 
Who are They ? On my breast 
Weighs the infinite. 

Ah, yes, I appeared heroic, 
Unflinching, true and brave ; 
I wore the look of a stoic ; — 
All hurts I forgave. 

But now on the grass I turn 
To ease a little the pain ; 
It is not too late to learn. 

Last night I lay in the rain 
Until my body was numb, 
Hearing like a refrain: 

[4] 



LATER POEMS 

" O Masquerader, come ! "- 
And even like a drum 
It beat into my brain : 
" O Masquerader, come ! " 



[5] 



AUTUMN COMMUNION 

This autumn afternoon 
My fancy need invent 
No untried sacrament. 
Man can still commune 
With Beauty as of old: 
The tree, the wind's lyre, 
The whirling dust, the fire — 
In these my faith is told. 

Beauty warms us all ; 
When horizons crimson burn, 
We hold heaven's cup in turn. 
The dry leaves, gleaming, fall, 
Crumbs of mystical bread ; 
My dole of Beauty I break, 
Love to my lips I take, 
And fear is quieted. 

The symbols of old are made new: 
I watch the reeds and the rushes ; 
The spruce trees dip their brushes 
In the mountain's dusky blue ; 
The sky is deep like a pool; 
A fragrance the wind brings over 
[6] 



LATER POEMS 

Is warm like hidden clover, 
Though the wind itself is cool. 

Across the air, between 

The stems and the grey things, 

Sunlight a trellis flings. 

In quietude I lean: 

I hear the lifting zephyr 

Soft and shy and wild; 

And I feel earth gentle and mild 

Like the eyes of a velvet heifer. 

Love scatters and love disperses. 
Lightly the orchards dance 
In a lovely radiance. 
Down sloping terraces 
They toss their mellow fruits. 
The rhythmic wind is sowing, 
Softly the floods are flowing 
Between the twisted roots. 

What Beauty need I own 
When the symbol satisfies? 
I follow services 
Of tree and cloud and stone. 
Color floods the world ; 
I am swayed by sympathy; 
Love is a litany 
In leaf and cloud unfurled. 
[7] 



THE BEGGAR 

Showing his ill-made frame 

And mumbling of troubles many, 

Along a public street, 

The cripple calls for a penny. 

Inviting sympathy, 

By his rags and his withered arm, 
He follows and frets till we argue 

A penny can do him no harm. 

Just now, in this intimate room, 
Sagacious, clever and witty, 

Exposing his hardships, a Beggar 
Beckoned his friends for pity. 

Ugh! By displaying his pains, 
By showing his heart was ashen, 

By revealing his twisted life, 

He played for a glance of compassion. 

Strange how I longed to laugh ; 

His feebleness was funny. 
I thought : " He's only a Beggar 

And affection is golden money. 
[8] 



LATER POEMS 

" Scorn will do for this Beggar, 
And a smile will send him away ; 

I will keep my love for One 

Who may need my love some day. 

" I will keep my love for One 

Who is brave and ashamed of tears 

The importunity 

Of silence reaches my ears ; — 

" Life on its lonely way 

Moving on lonely wings, 
And the mute mind, alone 

With dark imaginings." 

I thought, " I will keep my love, — 

I will keep my tenderness, 
For One who is piteous, 

Hiding his loneliness." 



[9] 



THE BREATH 

A trembling crest 
Of smoke, the winter sky 
Congeals to bloom, 
To please a poet's eye: 

A slender reed 
Arisen from some gold 
Recess or womb 
Of flame to spaces cold. 

Between the twigs, 
That for a nest are spun 
On flight's grey loom, 
A sapphire thread may run 

And so between the grey, 
The woven boughs of trees, 
A little plume 
Of mist the poet sees : 

It will suffice — 
Too scant a breath to name 
For him to whom 
It signifies a flame. 
[10] 



BY THE SEA 

Friend, we meet and feel as free 

As two young children. By the sea 

We sift the sand. From where we sit 

The line of shore seems infinite. 

The landward little dunes that lie 

In drifted shapes against the sky, 

Divide and sever and seclude 

Us from the scenes that could intrude 

Upon our chosen time of pleasure; 

In the ocean's louder measure, 

Speech is tempered and we dare 

To voice perplexities the air 

Transmutes to clearer truth for us. 

Our love is new and venturous, 

Permits veiled intervals and terms 

Of silence; in each pause affirms 

Implicit sympathies. Our words 

Take wing, float seaward, like the birds 

Upon the wind. The birds and love 

Are free to soar to climes above. 

But there are white waves tethered under 
Wanton wings. Are those, I wonder, 
Like our thoughts, — less fugitive, 

[ii] 



LATER POEMS 

Less free than love is, — tentative 
And groping, lest they touch and stir, 
On memories' mystic barrier, 
An unforgotten pain? Are we 
Then fettered, we who feel so free? 
We sift the sand. From where we sit 
The line of shore seems infinite. 
But waves into their tidal fold 
Obedient fall. Unto what mould 
Of wonted pain must you comply? 
tell me, are you bound as I 
With links of your own failure? Tell 
Me, do the crowded years compel 
And hinder you? What tyranny 
Distorted life, like an oak tree 
The wind has twisted? Long ago 
Youth was rebellious. Now we know 
Our thought is tethered like a wave, 
And strong compelling tides enslave 
Our spirits. No, we are not free. 
And still we almost seem to be — 
For since we newly love, our words 
Take wing, float seaward like the birds. 



[12] 



CHOICE 

Imperious Time, I must prefer 
Thy just necessity: 
Resign the silent, earlier 
Beliefs grown dear to me. 

The stillness left alternatives 
To youth, a freedom wide 
And dim as dreaming, but man lives, 
And must one day decide. 

There is a doom the years compel: 
I must approach the goal 
Decreed, where it behooves me dwell: 
I must declare my soul; 

Must speak and choose what stars pertain 
To me ; needs must I rest 
In their most intimate beams, remain 
Committed and confessed. 

I claim a tent of stars in place 
Of heaven's confusing dome: 
A tent of stars in a dark space — 
The sky must be my home. 
[13] 



LATER POEMS 

I must adopt a finer scope, 
A tent of stars in space — 
Affiliated flames, a hope 
Auroral creeds embrace. 



[14] 



THE CHRISTIAN 

I was free. But now in a net I am caught : 
In a delicate net of love I am taken ; 
I, the lonely, whom nobody sought, 
Can feel the poor and the sorrow-shaken 
Draw the line of their yearning taut ; 
I am held by experience. When I die 
Their net will draw me through fathoms of sky ; 
I can not evade immortality. 



[15] 



CHRISTMAS, MADISON SQUARE 

In dismal darkness stands the Christmas pine 

The Orthodox have put up for a sign 

Among the sombre trees that mark the Square. 

Oh, there are moral people everywhere 

Indulge the doctrine still of " doing good ; " 

They brought the tree uprooted from the wood. 

Like oranges or apples of warm gold 

Are bulbs of gleaming light the branches hold, 

And yet that golden fruit no languor drenches ! 

Below, the motley company 

Is like a shadow, neither spiced nor gay, 

That hovers wearily to huddled benches. 

On one of these a woman sits alone; 
More poor than thirsting youth for being older. 
She's leaning on her arm. Her slanted shoulder 
Says more clear than any word she's lonely. 
She yields the icy wind her neck and hair ; 
Her lids are closed. 

A foil of softer air 
Brings vision of the forest her first lover 
Wove into his Poetry. 
To-night her shivering fancy can recover 
The scene of a June world remote and free ; 
[16] 



LATER POEMS 

The tones of mist and of blue mirrored hills. 

A long-unheeded beauty pain distils. 

Like the earth under pines is the way where her 
memories pass : 

She sees old orchards stifled in fresh grass, 

The shapes of little apple trees 

Scared of the wind's gathering, on their knees ; 

The spires of larch rising in quiet skies ; 

The elm with parted stem and foliage droop- 
ing; 

The mothering willow stooping 

To kiss the stream ; 

And the companionable pine. 

Within the magic of the Christmas light, 

She hears hushed words of love, as in the night 

One hears on stones the flowing of a brook. 

But in the Square about the tree there's singing; 
And now the winter wind her cheek is stinging ; 
Her aching soul can feel the heavy frost. 

She could not live on what her craft was earn- 
ing; 
To satisfy the dream her youth kept burning, 
And she was ignorant of what love cost. 
To the blind strength of love her body shook, 
[17] 



LATER POEMS 

And to the joy of love her longing darted; 
Now she's lonely and she's broken-hearted. 

The Fate that still prevents her choice to-day 

Is Poverty, a Fate that mars 

The slow unfolding spirit; 

Born of a longing to inherit, 

Like the sweet thirst of tree tops for the stars. 

Her sin's identity is need ; 

Her thirst a thirst for God, reversed 

Until her slaved mortality is freed. 

Within the magic of the Christmas light, 
Her soul — like snow, blossoms, foam — is white ; 
And her desire is fine, 
Unswerving as the pine. 

After vision of those freer places, 
She fumbles to her feet. 
We lose her in a throng of faces. 
She drifts into the crevice of a street. 

The pine tree boughs divide 
In search of spaces wide ; 
Life unsatisfied 
Ascends. 



[18] 



THE CIRCLE 

My grief comes back after an interval 
Of years. How strong it seems ! Is my defeat 
Assured and final still? Shall I repeat 
My failure? Am I ever sorrow's thrall? 
Sometimes old griefs can loom again so tall 
We are afraid of kindness, and the sweet 
New truth of love we cannot bear to meet ; — 
Our past would seem to hold us after all. 
We know men go in circles when they're lost : 
My grief must prove that I have gone astray. 
I cross again the very path I crossed 
Before! I stand abreast of the old pain: 
I am not changed. I am as yesterday, 
And feel the weight of my old sorrow's chain. 



[19] 



THE CROWNING GIFT 

I have had courage to accuse; 
And a fine wit that could upbraid ; 
And a nice cunning that could bruise ; 
And a shrewd wisdom, unafraid 
Of what weak mortals fear to lose. 

I have had virtue to despise 
The sophistry of pious fools ; 
I have had firmness to chastise; 
And intellect to make me rules 
To estimate and exorcise. 

I have had knowledge to be true ; 
My faith could obstacles remove; 
But now my frailty I endue. 
I would have courage now to love, 
And lay aside the strength I knew. 



[20] 



THE DEEP 

I must have peace, increasing peace ; 

Oh, not a brave, 
A fleeting interval between 

Each breaking wave; 

Oh, not a treacherous pause between 

The gathering gales ; 
Nor rest in the white fleece of cloud 

Cold winter trails ; 

Oh, not a temporal winter, not 

A fitful sleep ; 
But such a lasting winter as 

Dark oceans keep. 

Beneath all tides there sleeps a depth 

Of cold fecundity, — 
A zone that spins and spins a fine 

Transparency. 

There must be such a wintry zone 

For teeming thought, 
Where forms the mildest ray would crush 

Are slowly wrought ; 
[21] 



LATER POEMS 

Where floating shapes of stars and leaves 

Are free to dwell, 
And feel the quietude of Life's 

Eternal spell. 

I must have peace, and so in some 

Dark peace I trust, 
Where thoughts like stars and leafage can 

Be spun from dust. 



[22] 



DELIVERANCE 

Deliverance? You mean this empty cup 

My days keep filling up ; 

You mean my future into which keeps flowing 

Forever without my knowing, 

The irresistible current of my past? 



[23] 



THE DESERTED SHRINE 

I was the temple for a people's need ; 
My columns and my towers lifted bright. 
Expressed the soaring ardours of their creed. 
My windows were the lanterns of their night ; 
My naves were golden solitudes for prayer ; 
My sepulchres enveloped those asleep ; 
And I concealed the living soul's despair, 
In vestibules with pious love replete. 

Through severed arch, the mournful wind I 

hear, 
And my lone pillars that will never hold 
Aught but the dome of heaven, stand darkly 

bold, 
Like the bare crags, that from ebb tides appear. 
The mellow, sheathing shadows droop to hide 
My sadness, and the voices hushed of birds, 
Lull my deep slumber, throbbing, like the words 
Of love that on forsaken hearts abide. 



[24] 



DISCIPLINE 

These forty days I fasted in 

My sorrow's wilderness : 

Hence I can feed with sorrow's thrift 

My tempted loneliness. 



[25] 



DISILLUSION 

Only a blunder, 

I mistook you for somebody else! 

Shall I tell you? I thought you were God, 

So beauteously you strode. 

Now I wonder; 

I pay for my folly with pain ! 

I must bury my faith. But all good 

Is not dead, though I misunderstood. 



[26] 



DOMINION 

Patrician overthrown, 
What lyric powers oppose 
The dogmas you intone ! 
You still would be of those 
Who rule by " willing " ? — No. 
Chaos within, I say, 
Compels your star to glow 
With fixed complacency. 

When a bright star shall dance, 
'Twill be from lowly fires 
That sting your arrogance ! 
Among the patient choirs 
Of Heaven, old Earth maintains 
Her meaning. Dare to call 
Her measure prose! Her strains 
Are immemorial. 

Earth gives you patronage. 
Yes, you, who have surpassed 
Her human heritage 
Of wisdom, the meek past 
Enshrouds and swaddles. Are 
You free? The Master? — Yes- 
[27] 



LATER POEMS 

Imperial, titular ; — 

But Earth you can't possess ! — 

— Old Earth, — old, constant Earth, 

In whom is dancing thought 

And song and endless birth 

Of wonder — Earth, so old, 

Yet still so new with years 

That none her sway shall hold 

Except the lyric seers. 



[28] 



EARLY SNOW 

Above the forest line 
There's been a fall of snow 
At variance with autumn's ray ; 
Yet trees, the color of wine, 
Whispered hours ago : 
" Frost is on the way." 

Oh, past our narrow view, 
There comes a drift of Death, 
To love, anomalous and strange ; 
Yet whispering poets knew: 
They marked the dying breath, 
Divined the law of change. 



[29] 



EXPERIENCE 

There is no need for you to cheer or nerve 
My spirit forward; for the days advise; 
The years have counselled me. I recognize 
No change from joy to sadness. I observe 
No variation. Like the simple curve 
Earth follows, meeting Spring and Winter 

skies, 
My life is one experience, implies 
Continuous truth. When it appears to swerve, 
To mount from sadness into joy, or sink 
To sadness with a wayward cruelty, 
'Tis only so to you who watch. You think 
That I must feel contrasting moods. You 

name 
Them joy and pain. You have not skill to see 
That where I stand all beauty is the same. 



[30] 



THE EXTRA 

Sheltered and safe we sit. 

Our chairs are opposite; 

We watch the warm fire burn 

In the dark. A log I turn. 

Across the covered floor 

I hear the quiet hush 

Of muffled steps ; the brush 

Of skirts ; — then a closing door. 

Close to you and me 

The clock ticks quietly. 

I know that we exist 
Two entities in Time. 
Our vital wills resist 
Enclosing night; our thoughts 
Command a Truth above 
All fear, in knowing Love. 

But a voice in the street draws near ; 
A wordless blur of sound 
Breaks like a flood around: 
" Trust not your hopes, for all are vain, 
Trust not your happiness and pain, 
Trust not your storehouses of grain, 
Trust not your strength on land or sea, 
[31] 



LATER POEMS 

Trust not your loves that come and go, 
Trust only the hate of the unknown foe,- 
War is the one reality." 

Are we awake or dreaming? 

On the hearth, the ashes are gleaming. 

Listen, dear: 

The clock ticks on in the quiet room, 

It's all a joke, a poor one, too. 

Or else I'm mad! This can't be true? 

I light the lamp to lift the gloom. 

My world's too good for such a doom. 

One fact, if nothing else, I know, 

I'll die sooner than have it so ! 



[32] 



FOLDED POWER 

Sorrow can wait, 

For there is magic in the calm estate 
Of grief ; lo, where the dust complies 
Wisdom lies. 

Sorrow can rest 

Indifferent, with her head upon her breast ; 
Idle and hushed, guarded from fears ; 
Content with tears. 

Sorrow can bide, 

With sealed lids and hands unoccupied. 
Sorrow can fold her latent might, 
Dwelling with night. 

But Sorrow will rise 

From her dream of sombre and hushed eternities. 

Lifting a Child, she will softly move 

With a mother's love. 

She will softly rise. 

Her embrace the dying will recognize, 
Lifting them gently through strange delight 
To a clearer light. 

[33] 



THE FOREST FIRE 

These pines could feel the wind, the snow, 

The April sun ; 

But through them now no changes flow. 

These pines could feel the grief and mirth 

Of quiet years ; 

But now they know unchanging dearth, 

And they can feel no mood of spring — 

Like certain souls 

Who find in flame their blossoming. 



[34] 



THE FUGITIVE 

Fool, Fool, 

They can hear thy frighted feet, 
And they poke fun at thee, 
Or pity thee, 
Or pity thee. 
They can hear thy steps retreat, 
Shuffling timidly. 

Thy gait is hobbling and uncouth, 
For stubborn is earth's clay ; 

There was a day, 

There was a day, 
When from the doom of its own youth, 
Thy spirit stole away. 

Do they not know thy spirit's home? 
Thy spirit, glancing, glides 

Beneath all tides, 

Beneath all tides. 
It is a coral under foam; 
In the cool deep it hides. 

For lo, the yielding element 
Of immortality 

[35] 



LATER POEMS 

Is like the sea, 

Is like the sea. 
Do they not hear, in wonderment. 
The tides enfolding thee? 



[36] 



THE GARDENER 

At evening, I have seen him wander in 
And out between the hedges ; 
On the moss he treads, where shadows spin 
A misty web. He skirts the edges 
Indistinct of heliotrope and jessamine. 

I wonder what he does, studious 
And furtive in the gloom. 
Is he covering the tremulous 
Young plants that have no spreading bloom 
When night is cool, to keep them young and 
luminous ? 

Or is he mutely speculating there 
Upon the flowers themselves ; 
His love observing them through the veiled air 
As plain as when he weeds and delves 
At noon, but with more secret and more wistful 
care ? 

I call the garden mine. This votary 
Who loves it makes it his ; 
A poet owns his legend. If I were 
To ask the garden whose it is, 
It would reply : "My master is this gardener." 
[37] 



GRIEF 

Exultant whirlwind wrung the branches ; 

And the weak leaves were loosed with power. 
I heard the pelting dissonances ; 

Anguish in the autumn shower. 

But living petals now take wing 

Like butterflies with dusky flashes ; 

April flutters her white ashes 
Inaudibly, remembering. 



[38] 



HANDICAPPED 

'Tis in a measure easy not to plan 

But simply to lie still and brave all day 

A single discipline. I've put away 

Ambition. From a straight, a narrow span 

Of life, a lofty quietude I scan, 

And an unclouded beauty I survey. 

My hands are idle, but my thoughts can weigh 

And prove what has been true since earth began. 

By suffering released from self-endeavour, 

I view reality, that rainbow skein 

That is like sunlight and the sombre rain. 

Although my body must lie still forever, 

With vigorous will out of myself I lean 

And gather what my body has not seen. 



[89] 



IDLENESS 

I feel, the stress 

Of life's unmeaning days : 

Oh, how the vain past weighs 

My will — the vacant seasons numberless ! 

The clear device 

Intrepid thoughts define, — 

The glowing, brave design — 

Elude the weary shuttle twice and thrice. 

I lose the whole in shreds ; 

The sombre days unroll, 

And I must spend my dole 

Of time untwisting ravelled threads. 



[40] 



INDEPENDENCE 

I lie in wait that I may steal a view 
Of truth as lovely as the spires of larch 
Rising in limpid iskies. But wandering March 
Eludes me though I watch the swift year 

through 
July to June: all visions dawn from you. 
Though I look steadily across the arch 
Of my own youth; though many splendors 

parch 
My blood, your wisdom, Sweet, alone I listen to. 
Yet I would win a beauty all my own, 
Too fine for derivation or confiding, — 
Surprise a truth your love has never shown 
My servile glance ; my themes, by living them, 
Shall grow like laden branches from a stem, 
And I shall break them off at their dividing. 



[41] 



LAUGHTER 

Throughout his life men seldom spoke with 

him; 
They stood aloof. But he could overhear 
Their laughter hooting far away and near, 
With scornful intonations. It could dim 
Things lovely and beloved. Upon the rim 
Of his most hallowed griefs it could appear 
To mock with mirth and with unheeding cheer. 
He was afraid of laughter. Ah, how prim, 
How foolish, it could make his prayers ! He 

durst 
Not improvise a loving God. In cloak 
Of tenderness could laughter lash his soul: 
Until at last, with savage glee, it broke 
From his own trammelled breast. He felt it roll 
And surge to his own lips and quench his thirst. 



[42] 



LEISURE 

When I have nothing else to do, 
When I am free, the hour kind, 
I like to lift reflections from 
The pool of my mind. 
I'm thirsty, and I like to drink 
A wisdom cool and clear ; 
Standing precautionary, shy, 
As lion or as deer. 



[43] 



THE LION 

I feel the lines of yellow sunlight burn 
My body, alternating with each bar 
Of shadow. Captive in my cage, I yearn 
For the large river where somnambular 
I drank at twilight, listening lest some star 
Betray me quenching the salt blood. But far 
Is the cool river! Golden sun-streaks burn 
Athwart my body, in between each bar 
Of shadow. Now I range in circular 
Pursuit of my own power, now taciturn, 
I lie. My refluent sinews fetters are; 
And with reverberant fires, I lash, I spurn 
This body which the yellow sun-streaks burn: 
My passion mocks these lines of cinnabar. 



[44?] 



LOVE 

Hush, hush, O wind ! 
Between the leaves you creep, 
You grope like something blind. 
The tree tops as they sleep, 
The standing spears of grass, 
You'll touch them when you pass. 

Still, still, O love ! 
My need awaits your dower, 
My foolish heart your power; 
Though sorrow dawn anew 
I may not strive with you. 



[45] 



MANUMISSION 

Oh, you are free! When you are satisfied, 
When you have all my love can give you here, 
I shall not keep you. Go ! No faltering fear 
Of mine shall hinder you from searching wide 
Unguarded ways, forbid your spirit glide 
Beyond the harboured safety of each year 
In which I've loved you. Now you are so near 
That all your dreams are mine. You cannot 

hide 
The faintest dawning of your thought. How 

should 
You spare me when you go? Yet you are free, 
Oh, you are free, to change or to progress! 
So be it when you shall turn quietly 
Away from me, you have but understood 
Your love can leave no room for loneliness. 



[46] 



THE MOCKING WIND 

Wind, you will not break my house ; 
Though you come to my house in bodily form, 
Though you tramp on the doorstep and over 

the stone, 
Though you knock on my roof and my window 

with storm. 

O Wind, though you lift your mischievous 

hand, 
Rubbing your smooth palm over my door, 
Though your elbows nudge the wall of my 

room, 
Though you hum with contentment over my 

floor, — 

O Wind, you will not break my house ; 
Your mirth will not shake the resting beams ; 
For a slow and a careful Carpenter 
Built me my house, — my house of dreams. 



[47] 



THE MOULD 

No doubt this active will, 
So bravely steeped in sun, 
This will has vanquished Death 
And foiled oblivion. 

But this indifferent clay, 
This fine, experienced hand 
So quiet, and these thoughts 
That all unfinished stand, 

Feel death as though it were 
A shadowy caress ; 
And win and wear a frail 
Archaic wistfulness. 



[48] 



THE POET 

O tekl me, tell me, 
How did you drain 
Your song to drops 
Clear as rain? 

What labor, what sorrow, 
What sacrifice, 
Crystal'd your song 
To beryl ice? 

What burning gladness 
Warmed it again 
To a vapor sweet, 
Clear as rain? 

O tell me, tell me, 
Melody's price — 
Is it work, is it pain, 
Is it sacrifice? 



[49] 



THE QUEST 

You've been a wanderer, you! 
But I've been a wanderer, tool 

You've seen the fine smoke rising 
Like a fern uncoiled in spring; 
And through the shut blind gazing 
You've seen the white fire blazing ; 

But often I've knocked at your door 
For the love I've been asking for. 

You've borne, in the starlit expanses 
Of the hushed night sorrowfully lying, 
Gleams, like the furtive glances 
Over one who is dying. 

You've seen your sorrow enlarge 
Like a sphere to solitude's marge ; 
And you've gone in need of bread 
With thoughts in your heart instead. 



[50] 



LATER POEMS 

So you think I've been filled, to be sure? 
And you've never guessed how poor 
My leisured safety is ! 

How I slake my thirst with song 
To urge and lure me along, — 
How I look for your melodies ! 



[51] 



REALIZATION 

There is one syllable that stirs me : War ! 
I picture what the mortal strife must be 
Of Nations clad in youth and bravery. 
I hear the voice of human anguish more 
Compelling than it ever was before. 
Across the universe, beyond the sea, 
New life is spilled into infinity, 
And the waves tell it moaning on our shore. 
How comes it bleaker sorrow I can bear ; 
The combat starkly drawn, a street, a square 
Away? The souls intrenched in frigid line 
To fight for purposes no kings define ; — 
For purposes as grim to them as life? 
God, let me apprehend this nearer strife I 



[52] 



RELEASE 

O stars, they've left me with you here, 
For their conspiracy is ended. 
The mockery of men extended 
To the edge of this dark sphere. 

But now men cannot do us harm. 
O stars, they've left us now together; 
They cannot hurt us now, whether 
We feel them still across the calm 

Of thought, or seem to recognize 
The white hands of the flatterer 
In these white clouds that mildly stir 
The darkness here before our eyes. 

O stars, I can fear nothing more : 
With you there is no loneliness. 
With you, against the night, I press 
My quiet spirit and adore. 



[53] 



RENEWAL 

Can this be love men yield me in return 

For what I do? I hold a strange belief 

That love is not a tribute, nor a leaf 

Of laurel, nor a wage the soul can earn 

By any kind of doing. The concern 

Of love is need, and love is the spare sheaf 

We glean from pain — the fruit of patient 

grief. 
Can this be love men yield me? Nay. I spurn 
Their recompense who could so long refrain 
From giving. I myself will grant the gift 
And prove what loving is. I'll finer sift 
My sorrow, make new songs distilled from pain ; 
Above this hour of bitterness I'll lift 
My spirit up and taste my grief again ! 



[54] 



THE SCIENTIST 

With what fidelity and yearning care 
He must accommodate his glass ; in blind 
Huge darkness, till each star be clear defined ; 
At noon-day, till each point and leaf lies bare; 
Each crystal in each stone. He must not spare 
His days nor number years. His eye must find 
The inmost kernel. Lo, his hands grow kind 
With touching beauty, and his heart aware 
Of curious things ; of life in spiral shells, 
Of death in searching mould around each tree. 
Desiring truth, no lesser gift he owns. 
Upon the lonely summit where he dwells 
His soul delights in sifting stars and stones. 
He asks no grace except the grace to see. 



[55] 



SEPARATION 

When intervals of solitude are done, 
Or nearly done, what brimming utmost bliss ! 
My wings disturb my lonely chrysalis 
To go to thee ! I open one by one, 
To ease delight, thy casements to the sun ; 
Prepare thy chamber where thy follies miss 
Thee, too ; then tip-toe with my treasured kiss, 
And love that weighs my thrilling breast, I run 
To meet thy coming ; — pause in sweet sus- 
pense 
Too soon upon the doorstep — else delay ; 
I almost see thee — balm to aching sight ! 
What gladness, mingling with an equal sense 
Of soaring desolation, lest thou stay 
And leave the house and me deserted quite! 



[56] 



SONG 

I like to see the pebbles creep 

Into the ocean's hand. 

I like to see the water spread 

Wide fingers on the sand, 

And fumble for the emeralds 

The foaming ripples hold, 

Or grope among the seaweeds for 

A clasp of coral cold. 

I like to see the ocean stoop 

And gather shining things: 

Chrysolite or pearl or just 

A tiny shell with wings. 



[57] 



SONG 

Love is like a wind that passes 

Its fingers through the blades and grasses. 

Love itself is hidden from sight, 

But all we see is through its light ; 

Love is like a soft song sweeping 

The hills and valleys of its keeping; 

Love is like a white scythe gleaning 

Every meadow's happy meaning. 

Oh, the meadow's dream we saw there, 

Soft enough so ferns could grow there! 

Love is like a flame unfolding, 

Needs delight should wait its moulding, 

Needs delight should wait while sorrow 

Makes it pure for love to-morrow. 

Love is like a wind that passes 

Its fingers through the blades and grasses. 



[58] 



STAR SONG 

There are twisted roots that grow 

Even from a fragile white anemone. 

But a star has no roots : to and fro 

It floats in the light of the sky, like a water-lily, 

And fades on the blue flood of day. 

A star has no roots to hold it, 

No living lonely entity to lose. 

Floods of dim radiance fold it ; 

Night and day their silent aura transfuse, 

But no change a star can bruise. 

A star is adrift and free. 

When day comes, it floats into space and com- 
plies ; 
Like a spirit quietly, 

Like a spirit, amazed in a wider paradise 
At mortal tears and sighs. 



[59] 



TEMPTATION 

You feel the witchery of Life, the call 

Of a disturbing beauty ; you respond 

And view forbidden mysteries beyond 

The soul whose orbit seems to you so small. 

But I am not thus tempted: not by all 

Life's dear implied seductions. No, a bond 

Of thought subdues me ; rather am I fond 

Of quietness, of safeties which enthrall; 

Of self-enshrining loneliness. I fail 

To make the gesture Life awaits ; withhold 

A motion of the hand, a word, a kiss, 

A glance of plain avowal. Standing cold, 

Aloof, the tempered silences prevail, 

And steeped in dreams I lose authentic bliss. 



[60] 



THOUGHT 

Thought is fragrant like shining grass ; 
It makes for our spirits a lovely mead ; 
As animals taste the grass in shadow 
On pensive lawns, our spirits feed. 

There are seasons when thought lies hidden and 

cold, 
As in winter the grass lies under the snow ; 
But the springtime of thought is unforeseen, 
For our fitful need it seems to grow. 

Thought is most often like shining grass ; — 
But thought has a varied form and way ; 
It is like the round leaf of a violet, 
Or the feathery line of a fir-tree spray. 



[61] 



TO MY POET 

Dear Poet of the swift imperial ways, 

The overtones of thy melodious showers 

Are mine, and shadows of thy leaning flowers ; 

My thoughts are emulous of thy thought 

sprays. 
Thou art the shepherd of my humble days. 
The faint subsiding impulse of thy powers 
Reverberates and stirs my silent hours ; 
My partial words are thy remembered lays. 

When Jesus gave the loaves to the meek throng, 
They fared, and there were basketsful be- 
sides — 
The fragments fallen from his grace benign, 
Abundant — since, dear Poet, love divides, 
A portion of thy opulence is mine, 
I gather from thy plenitude of song. 



[62] 



TYRANNY 

This One I feared is powerless become. 

Shut lids conceal the leer, the lips are dumb, 

And the satiric laugh, that used to scare 

Delight away, is silent. Yes, I dare 

Consider him disabled, vincible. 

And yet, as though I were responsible, 

My will to blame for keeping him in bonds 

Of unrelenting frost, I fear, I fear 

Him still. This mould, marmoreal, austere, 

Assumed in death, needs love to read it, yes, 

Needs love. For love to the frail flesh responds, 

And pities even cruelty, when strife 

Has nurtured it. But sleeping powerless, 

Of all reproach or pardon unaware — 

It is as though my love were lying there. 

The taunt of silence takes my life — my life. 



[63] 



UNCERTAINTY 

Sometimes a phrase 

That Ariel sings 

Is audible. Though wings 

Make sighing music, fainter things 

Are Ariel's lays. 

I think I've known 

The gradual drift 

Of tones that pauses lift, 

As petals through a pleached rift 

Are softly blown. 



[64] 



THE VOICE 

I hear His voice and the sea's voice : 
Two melodies. 

His voice that melted long ago 
In spaces gold, 

Unanswered and unechoed, — and 
The soft sea-fold. 

Why did He always walk beside 
The singing sea, 

Where speech unheeded fades like foam 
In mystery? 

Is love in truth a spoken word, 
A cadence clear, 

A voice that lapses in loud space 
For none to hear? 

Then why His voice and the sea's voice : 
Two melodies? 



[65] 



THE WEAKLING 

Confined within the walls of a grey world, 
And never from that iron realm allowed, 
My powers were wasted ; I was broken, bowed ; 
Throughout the years my strength and will 

were furled. 
But later, when the force of time had hurled 
All barriers down, released me from the cloud 
That held my spirit, left me free, endowed 
With latitudes of love, my spirit whirled 
Bewildered round itself. In that clear field 
I had not strength nor will to stand revealed, 
Nor claim deliverance. Self-pity drew 
Me to my doom. I was beset anew; 
I was afraid — afraid that love would see 
What all those iron years had done to me. 



[66] 



WINTER POETRY 

Lovers think that they alone possess 
A sense of beauty. They ascribe all graces 
To their love ; seeing earth's wintry places 
Warmed and enchanted, they suppose and 

guess 
Their own illusion makes the loveliness. 
They dream their flame illumines the dim spaces 
Of the sky ; they think the earth embraces 
No charm but that their pleasure can express. 
Yet we, who shun romance, find beauty near; 
A stillness in the air when summer's gone ; 
On the fine winter stem hang subtle fruits; 
We like to see the slender willow spear ; 
We like red weeds and branches blackly drawn, 
And the white snow embroidered with brown 

roots. 



[67] 



WINTER SONG 

Through moveless pines I hear the air 
Rolling like a silken flood, 
And the clear note of a lonesome bird 
Piping a quiet word. 

Bowing shadows weigh the snows ; 
In every bush the sunshine flows. 
Winter, solemn though it is, 
Distils deep mysteries. 

We, who must grow poor and old, 

Since our loveliest hours in childhood were told, 

We, to whom visions in youth were shown 

Clear and crowning as dawn, 

Must sift and sift to a single theme, 

To a lyric line, the truth of our dream. 

When age and the winter night are long, 

We must simplify our song. 



[68] 



WORDS 

Words are the stones I use in building, 

My house will be strong without fillet or gilding ; 

I dig in the crypt of the centuries 

Where the earth is rich in ebonies. 

I burrow for words in the quarry of time, 

In the heart of the ancient hills for rhyme. 

There are veins of Beauty the sages have 

known : 
Milton worked where the marble shone ; 
Our Lincoln found what he liked in the clay 
Of the common fields where the stones are grey. 
So every spirit must find a way 
And delve for the treasure that seems its own. 

But you! what are words, what are words to 

you! 
Not stone nor metal precious and true, 
Nor blocks to serve in a hallowed shrine, 
But seductive jewels cut subtle and fine, 
Spangles you wear to glitter and shine; 
I know the worth of your words to you ! 



[69] 



POEMS FROM THE GATES OF 
UTTERANCE 



THE GATES OF UTTERANCE 

There is a throng within the gates, 
A pressing, diverse throng ; — 

Without, a peaceful throng awaits, 
To which I would belong. 

Within the gates the varied folk 

Advise discordantly ; — 
Without, the poet-crowds convoke 

To council harmony. 

Within the gates are all the heights 
And depths of serried powers ; 

But when a lyric theme invites, 
I reach outlying bowers 

Where dwell the bards of quiet years ; 

I join my song to theirs ; 
My glad, unfettered spirit hears 

The melody it shares. 



[73] 



THE RIDERS 

You look askance at me. 
Do you take my horse 
For Pegasus? Of course 
He steps like Poetry, 
But he's a quiet beast. 
I think I hear you say 
You don't like in the least 
His fleet-footed way. 

But your light flitting mare 
Skims the meadows too. 
Her nimble feet pursue 
The stony dales, dare 
The sloping pastures, leap 
The brooks. You do the things 
I do in dreams, asleep — 
(Pegasus has wings) ! 

You canter wide-awake. 
Your mare is real ; my steed 
Imaginary. Need 
You then suspect me? Take 
[74] 



EARLIER POEMS 

The cloud-rack by my side ! 
Partners, Life and Art, 
Adventurers, we ride 
To rhythms in heaven's heart. 



[75] 



COMPENSATION 

You never told me, never, yet I know 
You hold a sadness in disguise, unseen 
Behind the days and years that intervene 
Since you renounced ambition long ago. 
Whence comes the tender love that you bestow 
To feed our loves? Behind your self serene 
There burns a golden passion, — how you screen 
With radiant life the flame you must forego ! 
Then you assume our love is ample meed, 
Atonement, — oh, I wonder any deed 
Of ours can ease your spirit's lassitude, 
Or lift your lonely heart ! Our stars elude 
Your sun that made them bright — your soli- 
tude. 
Deprived, no boon avails to fill your need. 



[76] 



REALITY 

What things are real? 

This falling, falling rain, 
This garden where 

My flowers droop again? 

Or simply dreams, 
Dreams asleep in me 

Until I join 

Their silent company? 



[77] 



THE BAT 

Over the river of sorrow 
Spread thy drab wings wide. 
Cool is the river. Glide 
Between the trees. Borrow 
The prudent feet of the fleeing 
Beast. Thy pinions blend 
With leaves. thou All-Seeing, 
Be night's obedient friend! 

To a gloomy bat, all sorrow 

Is cool and sombre and sweet. 

So no wonder thou fearest to meet 

The feline light of to-morrow. 

When out from the east a glimmer 

Of twilight corals thy wings, 

Thy vision grows dimmer and dimmer, 

Thou dreamer of dusky things ! 

When morning comes out from the east, 
Advancing with stealthy ray, 
Thy wheeling wings betray 
Thy presence, Bird-and-Beast, 
Soaring to dismal bowers 
With smoke-like motion. Gladness, 
[78] 



EARLIER POEMS 

Flame-like, heaps through the hours 
Thine ashen sorrow and sadness. 

Blinded by noon-day splendor, 
Unseeing till darkness return, 
Thy cinereous pinions yearn 
For stone-colored night. Surrender 
Thy spirit. Is not the sighing 
Monotony sweet? Maybe 
Creation is what we call dying, 
As daylight is darkness to thee. 



[79] 



THE AUDIENCE 

Intently leans the avid sage 

We name The Audience. His mood 

Invites a vigorous prelude 

Of sound, the silence to assuage, — 

The silence in sequestered sources 
Of his being. (Albeit his mind 
And soul and heart may be like wind- 
Awakened rivers in their courses.) 

In clear, attenuated line, 
The violin a theme avers. 
It is this theme as it recurs 
That forms the plenary design, — 

This theme, which the composer's love 
Could never deal with twice the same ; 
Submissive cellos now proclaim 
It ; louder clarions above 

Now give it wise embellishment. 
In unsuspected ways, all strings 
And pipes resume it, altering 
Their rhythms to be more eloquent. 
[80] 



EARLIER POEMS 

The strange, concurrent harmonies 
Provoke The Audience to pleasure, 
Lead by phrase and clustered measure 
To the peace of cadences. 

The Audience thinks in terms of tone ; 
The curious intellect pursues 
The flowing lines and shadowy hues 
Of sound, akin to sculptured stone ; 

Mind estimates. But in between 
The mind and soul an interim 
Is brimmed with intonations dim : 
The soul itself is left serene. 

Who can express what music is 
To soul? A cloud becomes cascade 
And stirs a river winter-weighed 
With frost. The massive images 

Of mountains, on whose purple ground 
The falling water carves a line 
Of white, as narrow and as fine 
As winter floods when first unbound, 

Remind one of the soul when sound 
Traverses it. Music is spring 
To soul, April's awakening, 
A freedom and a peace profound. 
[81] 



EARLIER POEMS 

But what is music to the heart? 
A trouble, a vicissitude, 
A dream no cadence will conclude. 
In it the surging sounds of Art 

Stay ever unresolved. They are 
Beginning only, origin, 
Inchoate symphony within 
A symphony of sky and star. 

There is no answer, thus and thus, 
That present players can impart 
To the long-listening, searching heart; 
But answers multitudinous. 

The avid sage, The Audience, 
Is wrapped in his own silence dim. 
The mind, the soul, the heart in him 
Observe the circling consonance 

Of chords. These grow more intricate 
Each time they are resumed, and still 
One chosen theme the tones fulfill, 
One motion they delineate. 

So God reveals Himself to me. 
I am His audience ; I hear 
With mind and soul and heart His clear 
Progressive theme perpetually. 
[82] 



TO FRANCE 

Oh, still I dream of thee, my France ! The sun 
Irradiates thy meadows. Stalks of grain 
And aureate beams infusing them are one. 
There is a harmony that links thy plain 
To quiet skies ; that weaves a slender chain 
Of living vine with wavering light. Where 

cease 
Thy level spaces, hills dim clouds detain ; 
And in thy south, where seasons find increase, 
The sheaves, like kneeling women, praise thy 

peace. 

Unwilling and reluctant are my dreams, 

To recognize transforming destinies. 

I dream of thee, my France ; of mellow beams 

That ripen happiness; of ample skies 

That frame thy far perspectives. Meadows 

rise 
To them by poplar spans. Upon thy ways 
I see the cross. The gentle Saviour dies 
With arms athwart the cloud. As heavenly 

rays 
Touch earth, His love a sense of light conveys. 
[83] 



EARLIER POEMS 

Is happiness no more than disguise, 

A sheathing dream reality must wear? 

If so, away with joyful mockeries! 

My France, in desolation thou art fair. 

Thy trampled poppies and thy fields laid bare 

Express a beauty that prosperity 

Concealed. Thy joys are fallen; fate would 

spare 
No ornament of peace. But I can see 
The strange unfolding of thy destiny. 

I love thee, and would know thee as indeed 
Thou art. No scythe, a sword embraces wheat, 
The poplars on thy margin seem to heed 
No more the wind that made their stems throb 

sweet 
As lyre strings. The stars alone entreat. 
Thy vine is severed and thy grape is blood ; 
Thy sheaves are souls. Thy rising meadows 

meet 
The sky like surging waves of a dark flood, 
And shadow closes every quickening bud. 

My France, my France, in darkness I begin 
To know the light that only faith can shed 
Upon thy ways. As joy and beauty win 
Through death, so thou shalt win. Art thou 
not fed, 

[84] 



EARLIER POEMS 

Though fields are bare, with spiritual bread ? 
The star-strewn shadow crowns and dignifies 
Thy young, submissive God of the bowed head. 
How newly does thy sorrow harmonize 
With His, whose loving arms enfold the skies ! 



[85] 



APPROACH 

Apparelled in a mask of joy till now, 

I knew thee not. Asleep, I see thy face 

More simply. Sorrow's leisure lets me trace 

The nicer lines. Thy sealed lids, thy brow, 

Thy lasting posture, purposes avow; 

In thy spent form resides a moveless grace. 

A pageant was thy life, and in its place 

T find a truth to feed and to endow 

My heart. Thy wonted mask of joy belied 

The meaning death's bare attitude makes clear. 

From living gesture thought went often wide, 

And I was poor interpreter; but here, 

Where it would seem our thoughts anew divide, 

The steady silence draws thy spirit near. 



[86] 



DEFINITION 

As clouds lie in the west, 
My fairest pleasures rest 
In you, their element 
Of being. Loath to die, 
They ornament your sky, 
Amassed, magnificent. 

They shun the realms beyond. 
Are you not their fond, 
Fair dwelling by consent 
Of time? Why should they go 
And vanish quite, as though 
They were not all-content? 

My pleasures are not love, 
Else like the clouds above 
They swiftly would relent. 
They are mild beauty ; dim 
Resistless thought ; and whim, 
And idle blandishment. 

Love is a wilful power, 
More like the wind or shower 
In which the cloud is spent. 
[87] 



EARLIER POEMS 

My pleasures only screen 
The space of light serene 
In your deep firmament. 



[88] 



EMBLEMS 

Where sweet ferns blow, where hemlock shad- 
ows lie, 
Where peaks of pine o'er oak-twined branches 

reach, 
In groves where bend the poplar and the beech, 
Where emerald willows touch the emerald sky, 
They come to us, the Lost Ones. Far and high 
The winds among the trees lift muffled speech, 
And tell the hidden past ; we question each 
Entreating form those winds identify. 
Below the hill they huddle stone by stone, 
The lost ones and the loved ones we have known, 
Who followed, fearless, ways where beauty led ; 
But here upon the hilltop, winds intone 
The foregone past. Oh, let us think instead, 
The living trees are emblems of our dead ! 



[89] 



THE POET'S THRIFT 

My landscape only need comprise low hills, 
For these are eminent and limitless 
To me. They mean more than my dreams ex- 
press ; 
They mean more than my word or deed fulfils. 
The slender trees, the tuneless whip-poor-wills, 
Impart quite ample themes to loneliness. 
I find enough in scant elusiveness 
Of springs and little brooks. My spirit thrills 
To beauty, unprepared for the sublime. 
I wonder, though, when I shall be completed 
Even to transcribe these hills? Sometime 
This landscape in few lines will show to me 
The subtle mysteries I have entreated, 
In the simple realm of poetry. 



[90] 



SOLICITUDE 

To me jour transport is a dim surmise, 
A vague, imagined bliss. But I will brace 
Myself to life ; though languid for the chase, 
Will gird my grief. Where your swift pleasure 

flies — 
Beneath whatever mirth-alluring skies — 
I'll follow, lest you pause in darkling space. 
Oh, let me gather stars, and turn your face 
To these, lest, meeting night, you breathe faint 

sighs ! 
Is joy illusion? This, in sooth, is clear, — 
The pause of weariness ; and should I hear 
You drop a single sombre semitone 
From Paradise, I'd gather every star; 
For I divine what it must be to mar 
This wonder that my breast has never known. 



[91] 



ASPIRATION 

Though my frail soul should never touch again 

The semblance of reality like this ; 

Through periods of time should always miss 

The imprint of true life ; nor find the plain, 

Familiar mould of being; still not vain 

Are those desires that frame undying bliss. 

The sky is not a vanishing abyss 

To me, but steadfast beauty, sheathing pain. 

I live in confidence. As planets turn 

About the sun, continually I yearn 

To God. His interpenetrating fire 

Is all I need. Though heaven prove mockery, 

My life ascends by dint of sheer desire, 

Imbued with hopes of immortality. 



[92] 



JOY 

How shall I make of joy discovery? 

For is it not an orbit that enspheres 

The heart? Like misty heaven, as one nears, 

The circuit spreads ; and like the flowing sea 

Whose waves evolve a scroll of mystery, 

Its vague development eludes the seers. 

It is a garment like the shrouding years, — 

A dusky shield, a cloudy canopy, 

Illumined by the soul that stands beneath. 

It must forever amplify, deploy, 

Give spirit space, — that's all I know of joy. 

It is a hovering defence, a sheath, 

In which the spirit comes to flowering, 

A folding and a cool enfolded wing. 



[93] 



EDUCATION 

I had lived many years when first I met 

What men call Sorrow. I had long conceived 

A semblance of it, thought I had achieved 

That magnitude, when side by side I set 

My lonely days. I knew the alphabet 

Of Life's experience, and I believed 

That when I touched another's grief, 

I grieved ; — 

But when at last I was myself beset, 

I marvelled. Little had I known. They told 

Me and they showed me death, but finally, 

Like shifting clouds no foresight can explain, 

I felt the changeful years envelop me. 

I was not loath to meet at last with pain, 

But oh, to feel the youth my age could hold ! 



[94] 



PROGRESSION 

The resonance of wind and wave 

Is put to music by the tide; 
So passion modulates to verse, 

And moves in rhythm's quiet stride. 

The bards in realms enchanted hold 
Familiar converse, like the birds; 

Repeat emotion, improvise, 

Sustain the fundamental words, — 

Until, forsaking pastorals, 

They must pursue Life's ampler prose,- 
A continuity of song 

The heart's experience only knows. 



[95] 



INTUITION 

Rhythms of exultation flow 
In dusky regions far behind 
The formal meadows of the mind. 
Sighs waft syllables, as blow 
The winds the grasses to and fro. 

The shape of cloud, as thought effaces 
Dream, eclipses the moon's lustre. 
My winged stars, like swallows, cluster 
In the deep enchanted spaces 
That imagination traces. 



[96] 



KINDRED 

What inequality ! 

The apple trees and stones 

Are kindred. Love, the stormy aeons 

Have made my spirit bleak and grey. 

Like sun-emblazoned leaves 
Or blossoms in the spring, 
Your loveliness, o'ershadowing, 
A garland for my spirit weaves. 



[97] 



RESIGNATION 

The dark house yonder is my life ; 

It looms against the purple night; 
The windows are my stars ; I count 

Them all, — each window one delight. 

Oh ! there are many stars above, 
But mine in strong substantial woe 

Are framed; I cannot misconstrue 
Life's dark intent, joy's fitful glow. 



[98] 



SOLACE OF SEASONS 

Cold winter finds no word of condolence. 

I laid my grief where pastures bright in spring 

Bore panacea, with young life whispering; 

I laid my grief in summer by the side 

Of a deep sea that brought a healing tide ; 

When autumn came, I laid it in a cloud ; 

The strong wind bore it in that balmy shroud : 

Cold winter finds no word of condolence. 

When skies above are bleak, I will not care ; 
A flame I'll kindle for my chill despair, 
A flame within my heart, for condolence. 



[99] 



THE FOUNTAIN 

My garden fountain sings to-night, 
Its margin is all moist with spray, — 

That snow-white marble margin where 
A white rose dreams of drooping day. 

Upon the rose fall rhythmic drops, 

Snow-cool from the pale fountain's crest,- 

Drops cooler than the shadows when 
The sun leads day-spring to the west. 

Unto the rose, my fountain's rim 

Is ample joy, while I, through tears, 

Can see my garden growing dim, 

And dream of sorrow's girding spheres. 



[100] 



THE THRESHOLD 

I threaded endless aisles 
Of level trees, of spare, 
Undeviating wood ; 
I penetrated streets 
Of houses parallel; 
I crossed a common where 
My day paused sentinel ; 
At evenfall I stood 
Before the dim defiles 
Of dusk, where light retreats, 
Immured in sombre ward. 
The sheathed sun went down ; 
Opaque was heaven's frown; 
Mountains, looming grey, 
Framed the threshold — yea - 
The portal to the Lord. 



[101] 



THE HERMIT 

I mark the hermit's den, 
And ponder why he fled 

So far from other men ; 

Why chose to make his bed 

In lonely Nature's fen. 

For surely he must tread 
On yearnings even there; 

And he must see — outspread 
The vital branches bear 

The burden of Christ dead. 



[102] 



THE HYPOCRITE'S REWARD 

When came his final judgment, 
God gave him for his prize 

The crown, the single sceptre, 
He'd worn as his disguise. 

The crown, the single sceptre, 
A new, familiar shame ; 

For when he came to judgment, 
He wore them in God's name. 



[103] 



TESTIMONY OF HANDS 

Is every day the judgment day? 
A thousand mortals lift on high 

A throng of hands that plead and pray ; 
Beneath a space of quiet sky, 
Their several gestures testify. 

Oh, mark the wistful hand that holds 
A sorrow in its upturned palm ; 

The gentle hand that firmly folds 
Across the breast to make it calm ! 
Oh, mark the hand by which the balm 

Of youth was scattered, eloquent 
As the grey leaf upon the tree 

When summer's mellow joy is spent! 
Above that throng of hands, oh, see 
The Hand that plies eternity! 



[104?] 



TRANSMISSION 

A shell, expressed the verity 

In tones more limpid than the sea, — 

Distilled the sea's infinity. 

A mellow leaf disclosed the true 
In more than sun's pellucid hue, 
The sun was tinged in passing through. 

A wing revealed the sky unseen, 
Till motion made the air serene, — 
A wing — a soaring life, I mean. 



[105] 



PREPARATION 

A time will come when I shall breathe 

New melodies to soothe and fold, 
Like portions of a mellow sheath, 

My sorrow. While my songs withhold 
Their tones, I pause before the years ; 

I gaze on the grey world ; I strive 
To clear the mist of doubting tears. 

— My songs, what music you'll derive 
From silence in the time to come ! 



[106] 



EGYPT 

How still is Egypt, as a corpse's breast; 

Her power is muffled, stone on stone ; 
The sinews of her kingdom lie at rest ; 

Her deserts wake no pulse's moan. 

The Nile is like an adamantine sea ; 

Sky's cloud and star, like soundless flame ; 
The moon in silence mourns eternity, 

And calls blind man with magic claim. 

The hushed, impenetrable fear, the peace 
Of wings, the palm's inwoven spray, 

Are like death's pause before the soul's release 
Into another golden day! 



[107] 



DUSK 

As flowers at dusk their choicest perfumes hold, 
Some hearts hoard beauty when the body's old: 
I see an age-bent woman lead the herd 
To pasture, with no need of guiding word. 

While the dull beasts in the tall grasses browse, 
Inside her soul the earth's enchantments 

drowse ; 
The needles pause between her wasted hands, 
For light is always mellow where she stands. 

No motion marks her life's harmonious dream ; 
It is a part of Nature's quiet theme. 
Each day renews the uneventful past, 
Although her spirit nears a change at last. 

From the grey threshold of her silent home 
One night, her spirit, kin to evening's shade, 
Will float away from crevices life made, 
Like seaweed from a cliff into white foam. 



[108] 



CONFLICT 

Divided by the dark, 

Our foils converge. A spark 

You kindled not, My Enemy, 

A spark I never drew 

From bitter fires that sear me through and 

through, 
Gleams fitfully. 

That spark, that little light, 

Is lit where foils unite. 

It lives in spite of us, My Foe; 

In intervening space, 

This little eye that darts from place to place 

Sees clear, I know. 

Opinions are not one, 

And man's criterion 

Is not in us. Between, above, 

The cross that weapons frame, 

My Adversary, gleams a truth whose name 

Might still be Love. 



[109] 



TO THE CROWD 

When I hold a budding pleasure 
In my heart, can I diffuse it ? 

No ; you want the musk full-measure, 
Not the bud, — so you refuse it. 

When I hold an ebbing sorrow, 
Can I share the balm with you? 

No ; you want no lessening morrow, 
But meridian's deepest hue. 

Blossom of my joy completest, 
Zenith of my sorrow's hour, 

Yours. So I may keep the sweetest: 
Buds and lees — ambrosial power. 



[110] 



AUTUMN 

Capricious little poem and sapling rhyme 
Grew on the golden hillside of my youth. 
The stanzas were as crooked and uncouth 
As early things are wont to be. For time 
Was pressing and mid-summer's glowing prime 
Was ever imminent. Mysterious truth 
Was the warm soil thought sprouted from. 

Forsooth 
My songs were stem and filament to climb. 
But now, the memory of bud and fruit 
And flower is weariness. This present week 
In mid-September, wayward wild pursuit 
Is over; youth fulfilled. How shall they seek 
Beyond, unless from sunbeams in the skies 
These listless leaves take warmer harmonies ? 



cm] 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Gladys and Dorothea Cromwell were so essen- 
tially one that any account of either must in- 
clude the other. Neither ever used the singular 
pronoun, and those who knew them fairly well 
often doubted to which sister they were speak- 
ing. Indeed when it was suggested to Gladys 
that " Gates of Utterance " should be dedicated 
to Dorothea, she answered that poets were not 
in the habit of dedicating their verse to them- 
selves. So in writing even a brief sketch it is 
necessary to think of them as they were, an 
identity expressed in two terms. They were 
born in November, 1885, and inherited posses- 
sions, talents, and an exquisite beauty strangely 
poignant because in the twin sisters the charm 
seemed more than doubled. There are a few 
men and women with whom one feels a sense of 
spiritual mystery: one walks with them always 
on the road to Emmaus. It was true of these 
two. They found their home in the unseen. In 
the outer, material world they existed only by 
an effort that cost them much, for they moved 
as spirits, untouched by crude desires ; bending 
with a shy longing to meet human needs ; search- 
ing for some solution that should justify their 
[113] 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

personal immunities, their money, and the grace 
and luxury to which they had been born. A 
delicate humility made them feel debtors to life. 
In their eyes existence was a bond given by the 
soul, to be redeemed at any cost. Both had 
written from childhood, and in 1915 Gladys 
published a volume of poems that promised no 
uncertain music. Slight as it was, endless toil 
lay back of it: she had the master's sense of 
workmanship, and every verse and stanza was 
the outcome of labor that had often covered 
years. " Gates of Utterance " was obviously a 
first book: but it was the first book of a poet. 
Dorothea was developing more slowly, experi- 
menting more cautiously. The short stories she 
left show at once more cleverness, a keener sense 
of epigram, of earth's hidden laughter, than any 
one could have guessed who saw only a grace- 
ful, fuchsia-like creature, eager to give her time 
and income to social experiment and investiga- 
tion. But of them more was asked than selfless 
generosity, or will to serve. In a picture taken 
at the Chalons Canteen, the two girls, veiled and 
habited in white working uniform, stand like 
conventual sisters serving a group of poilus ; 
Dorothea holds a slender pitcher from which 
she pours into the soldier's cup, while Gladys 
offers bread in a shallow basket. Clear of line 
like a classic bas-relief, the so fortunate and so 
[114] 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

casual photograph is strangely symbolic and 
recalls One who said, " Take, eat ; this is my 
body broken for you." Gladys and Dorothea 
Cromwell broke the bread of their bodies and 
poured out the wine of their spirits that others 
might live. 

When the war drew an inerasable line across 
all lives, the two girls began to prepare them- 
selves. They spent their summer months in 
a hospital ; they learned to run a motor ; they 
took canteen-efficiency lessons ; they held them- 
selves aloof from the over-heated speech of ex- 
citement, but their hearts burned within them. 
The world as they saw it demanded of them an 
heroic resolve. 

In January, 1918, the two sisters, having en- 
rolled in the Canteen Service of the Red Cross, 
sailed for France and were stationed at Chalons. 
For eight months they worked under fire on 
long day or night shifts ; their free time was 
filled with volunteer outside service; they slept 
in " caves " or under trees in a field ; they suf- 
fered from the exhaustion that is so acute to 
those who have never known physical labor ; yet 
no one suspected until the end came that for 
many months they had believed their work a 
failure, and their efforts futile. The Chalonais 
called them " The Saints " ; during dull even- 
ings, the poilus, who adored the " Twin An- 
[115] 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

gels," found amusement in effort, always unsuc- 
cessful, to distinguish them apart. The work- 
ers in the Canteen loved and admired them for 
their courage — that finest bravery which leads 
fear to intrepid action ; they loved them for 
their rare charm, but they gave them whole- 
souled appreciation for the tireless, efficient 
labor which made them invaluable as practical 
canteeners. In September, at their own re- 
quest, they were transferred to an Evacuation 
Hospital, for after the rest of a " permission " 
they longed to work with " our own boys." 
Eight months overwhelming strain and fatigue 
had made them more weary than they realized, 
and the horrors of conditions near the Front 
broke their already overtaxed endurance. In 
the diaries they left, signs of mental breakdown 
begin to show as early as October. After the 
Armistice, when they returned to Chalons as 
guests, they showed symptoms of nervous pros- 
tration, but years of self-control and considera- 
tion for others made them conceal the black 
horror in which they lived — the agony through 
which they saw a world which they felt contained 
no refuge for beauty and quiet thought. In 
such a world they conceived they had no place, 
and when on their way home they jumped from 
the deck of the Lorraine, it was in response to 
a vision that promised them fulfilment and 
[116] 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

peace. To those who loved them, their death 
was not only heart-breaking, but brought with 
it a terrible sense of that most profound trag- 
edy of war, — the bitter waste of spiritual 
promise. In everyday life they were of those 
to whom the senses carry a double message ; all 
of us have memories of moments when a driven 
leaf, a slant of afternoon light, send through 
avenue of sight or sound an anguish no physical 
cause can explain — to these sisters, life was 
continuously bought at such a price, and the 
undue strain broke the too frail physiques. 

It is almost a year since they died on the 19th 
of January, 1919. Three months later they 
were buried in France with military honors, and 
the French Government has awarded them the 
Croix de Guerre and the Medaille de Recon- 
naissance francaise. They gave to the world 
lives of shining promise and crystal purity, 
having followed Him who said to His other 
disciples : Greater love hath no man than this, 
that a man lay down his life for his friend. 



These pines could feel the wind, the snow, 

The April sun; 

But through them now no changes flow. 

These pines could feel the grief and mirth 

Of quiet years; 

But now they know unchanging dearth. 

[117] 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

And they can feel no mood of spring: 

Like certain souls 

Who find in flame their blossoming. 

Anne Dunn. 



[118] 



INDEX OF TITLES 



Actor-Soldier, The . 


3 


Emblems . . 


89 


Approach . 


86 


Experience . 


30 


Aspiration . 


92 


Extra, The . . . . 


31 


Audience, The . 


80 






Autumn 


111 


Folded Power . 


33 


Autumn Communion . 


6 


Forest Fire, The . . 


34 






Fountain, The . . . 


100 


Bat, The . . . . 


78 


Fugitive, The . . . 


35 


Beggar, The 


8 






Breath, The . . . 


10 


Gardener, The . 


37 


By the Sea . . . . 


11 


Gates of Utterance, 








The 


73 


Choice 


13 


Grief 


38 


Christian, The . 


15 






Christmas, Madison 




Handicapped 


39 


Square . 


16 


Hermit, The . . . 


102 


Circle, The . . . . 


19 


Hypocrite's Reward, 




Compensation . . 


76 


The 


103 


Conflict 


109 






Crowning Gift, The . 


20 


Idleness 


40 






Independence . . 


41 


Deep, The . . . . 


21 


Intuition .... 


96 


Definition . 


87 


Joy 


93 


Deliverance . 


23 






Deserted Shrine, The . 


24 


Kindred .... 


97 


Discipline . 


25 






Disillusion . 


26 


Laughter .... 


42 


Dominion .... 


27 


Leisure 


43 


Dusk 


108 


Lion, The .... 


44 






Love 


45 


Early Snow 


29 






Education . . . 


94 


Manumission 


46 


Egypt 


107 


Mocking Wind, The . 


47 




[119] 





INDEX OF TITLES 



Mould, The . . . 


. 48 


Song 


. 58 






Star Song . 


. 59 


Poet, The . . . 


. 49 






Poet's Thrift, The 


. 90 


Temptation . 


. 60 


Preparation 


. 106 


Testimony of Hands 


. 104 


Progression 


. 95 


Thought .... 


. 61 






Threshold, The 


101 


Quest, The . . . 


. 50 


To France . . 


. 83 






To My Poet . . 


. 62 


Reality .... 


. 77 


To the Crowd . 


. no 


Realization . 


. 52 


Transmission 


105 


Release .... 


. 53 


Tyranny 


63 


Renewal 


. 54 




Resignation 


. 98 


Uncertainty 


. 64 


Riders, The . . 


. 74 










Voice, The . . . 


. 65 


Scientist, The . . 


. 55 






Separation . 


. 56 


Weakling, The . . 


66 


Solace of Seasons . 


nq 


Winter Poetry . 


67 


Solicitude . . 


. 91 


Winter Song 


68 


Song 


. 57 


Words .... 


69 



120] 



i 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

A shell expressed the verity 105 

A time will come when I shall breathe .... 106 

A trembling crest 10 

Above the forest line 29 

Apparelled in a mask of joy till now 86 

As clouds lie in the west 87 

As flowers at dusk their choicest perfumes hold . . 108 
At evening, I have seen him wander in . . . .37 

Can this be love men yield me in return .... 54 
Capricious little poem and sapling rhyme . . . .111 

Cold winter finds no word of condolence .... 99 

Confined within the walls of a grey world .... 66 

Dear Poet of the swift imperial ways 62 

Deliverance? You mean this empty cup .... 23 

Divided by the dark 109 

Exultant whirlwind wrung the branches .... 38 

Fool, Fool .35 

How shall I make of joy discovery? 93 

How still is Egypt, as a corpse's breast .... 107 

Hush, hush, O wind! 45 

I feel the lines of yellow sunlight burn .... 44 

I feel the stress 40 

I had lived many years when first I met ... 94 

I have had courage to accuse 20 

I hear His voice and the sea's voice ..... 65 

I lie in wait that I may steal a view .... 41 

I like to see the pebbles creep 57 

I mark the hermit's den 102 

I must have peace, increasing peace 21 

I threaded endless aisles 101 

I was free. But now in a net I am caught ... 15 

I was the temple for a people's need 24 

Imperious Time, I must prefer . 13 

[121] 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

In dismal darkness stands the Christmas pine . . 16 

Intently leans the avid sage 80 

Is every day the judgment day? 104 

Love is like a wind that passes 58 

Lovers think that they alone possess 67 

My garden fountain sings to-night 100 

My grief comes back after an interval .... 19 

My landscape only need comprise low hills ... 90 

No doubt this active will 48 

O Friend, we meet and feel as free 11 

O stars, they've left me with you here .... 53 

O tell me, tell me 49 

O Wind, you will not break my house 47 

Oh, still I dream of thee, my France! The sun . 83 

Oh, you are free ! When you are satisfied ... 46 

On the grass I'm lying 3 

Only a blunder 26 

Over the rivers of sorrow 78 

Patrician overthrown 27 

Rhythms of exultation flow 96 

Sheltered and safe we sit 31 

Showing his ill-made frame 8 

Sometimes a phrase 64 

Sorrow can wait 33 

The dark house yonder is my life 98 

The resonance of wind and wave 95 

There are twisted roots that grow 59 

There is a throng within the gates 73 

There is no need for you to cheer or nerve ... 30 

There is one syllable that stirs me: War! .... 52 

These forty days I fasted in 25 

These pines could feel the wind, the snow ... 34 

This autumn afternoon 6 

This One I feared is powerless become .... 63 

Though my frail soul should never touch again . . 92 

Thought is fragrant like shining grass 61 

Through moveless pines I hear the air .... 68 

Throughout his life men seldom spoke with him . . 42 

[122] 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

'Tis in a measure easy not to plan 39 

To me, your transport is a dim surmise . . . .91 

What inequality! 9? 

What things are real? 77 

When came his final judgment 103 

When I have nothing else to do 43 

When I hold a budding pleasure . . . . . .110 

When intervals of solitude are done ..... 56 

Where sweet ferns blow, where hemlock shadows lie 89 

With what fidelity and yearning care 55 

Words are the stones I use in building .... 69 

You feel the witchery of Life, the call .... 60 

You look askance at me 74 

You never told me, never, yet I know .... 76 

You've been a wanderer, you! 50 



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